Category: madwoman in the attic

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Avoidance

I sat on the edge of my bed earlier and said, out loud: ‘I love you. Don’t do this to yourself’. At the time it didn’t make any difference, as I knew it wouldn’t. But thinking back on it now, and writing it down, it seems significant that even when I was trying to encourage myself, it was framed as a prohibition and inherent criticism.

In my head all this feels entangled with a kind of grief, and the stages of grief (which I’ve heard about so many times, but have only a hazy perception of now and am probably taking out of context). As I recollect there are four main ones: denial, anger, depression and acceptance. I feel as though my whole life (not just in lockdown) is a cycle of the first three, without ever reaching the final stage – or at least, only in a partial way. What feels like happiness to me is largely denial, avoidance, coping, filling life with distractions and temporary pleasures. Bob Dylan has a wonderful phrase for this, I think it’s: ‘transient joys’, but I’m not sure of that, or even what song it’s from. Maybe if I can let it run in my head for a few minutes I can pin it down. Aaagh, no, I’ll have to look it up and I’m not doing that now! There I go, getting distracted again, when what I was really thinking as I wrote that was – maybe that’s true of most of us? That the pleasures we seek out from whatever sources: work, play, art, creativity, writing, reading, entertainment, sex, sport, nature, food, drink and other addictions, maybe even the company of other people – are ways of burying existential sadness? Well, maybe that’s not everybody, but perhaps more people than would admit to it.

But for years I’ve been saying/thinking that all the activities with which I normally fill my life, (swimming, yoga, tai chi, writers’ groups, choir etc) are ways of forcing myself to go out, to be with people, and that I have to bully myself into doing them. At the start of the lockdown I speculated on how I would cope without them. The answer initially was that I was quite happy to have an excuse not to go out – I sit in the garden, I do my 30 minutes exercise/meditation in the mornings, I write, interact on social media, listen to the radio, crochet, etc. I don’t even take advantage of the ‘daily outdoor exercise’ we’re supposedly allowed. I go to the shop once a week when I run out of milk and that’s it.

So why don’t I make a flask of coffee and walk to the seafront, instead of sitting here moaning? Why don’t I at least get off my backside and do some housework?

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Day 24 – Dark of the Moon

I woke.
It was dark.

I thought I would get up
and walk to the sunrise.
I stayed in my bed
and listened to the radio.

We all skate on the surface.
We walk on the knife edge.

Don’t look down,
don’t look back.
Shit happens,
keep smiling.
See the bright side.
half-full.
Stop thinking.
Stop doing.

You’ll never do enough.
You’ll never be
good enough.
You’re half full,
half empty.

Sun rises,
sun sets.
Moon wanes,
moon returns.
Spring rolls
into summer.

This is all there is.
Don’t fall off the edge,
Don’t shatter the glass.

Linda Rushby 24 April 2020

Now the words are coming and I can’t stop them – however banal, however dark. Why don’t I just ignore them? Why do I need to write them out? What happens if I don’t? I’m sure I’ve written about this before, somewhere back in the past, in the morass of words I’ve written and then never read again. Do all those unwritten words fester somewhere in the back of my mind? Things that go rotten do one of two things: they infect what’s around them and spread the rot, or they make compost for other things to grow in. What about my thoughts, my words? Which way do they go? Maybe both – but which predominates? They don’t seem to have borne much fruit so far.

Part of me thinks that writing them out helps in a way, it’s therapeutic, it helps to defuse those thoughts – maybe (but they still come back). There might be some value in writing them. But then, what about the next step, is there any point in trying to share them? What is that compulsion that makes me think it’s a good idea? Who reads them, and who of those really hears them, who responds, who finds them interesting, who is repelled by them, who ignores them and moves on? Anybody?

I want to be clear that none of this is directly related to the current situation. They’re just thoughts that come to me even in the best of times (and anyway, as I’ve said, these last few weeks of inactivity have suited me quite well.) Maybe the self-imposed pressure to write poetry has influenced the form that my thoughts are taking in terms of presenting themselves in lines and stanzas, I’m not sure – and the chain of connections from thinking that way, to writing them out, to blogging about them, and so on. Maybe.

Things have happened in the wrong order today. If I’d got up when I woke, at 4.30, how much would I have done already? At least, I would have had breakfast and gone for a walk to the sea. At 5.30 I checked the time for sunrise, and found it was 5.50, so only twenty minutes to get up, dress, make a flask of coffee and get there. I stayed in bed and listened to a play on podcast. Then got up and wrote. No coffee, shower, cat-feeding, yoga/tai chi, breakfast – just this drivel.

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Roads Not Taken

Shopping day disrupts my routine. I had breakfast when I got home, in the garden, trying not to think about the fact that I hadn’t done my yoga/tai chi routine or my writing. Well, does it matter, when these routines are self imposed? That’s the slippery slope, you let yourself off for one day and then down and down you go till suddenly you’re back to… well what? Formless chaos, a sense of emptiness, hopelessness, pointlessness… are there any positive words that end in ‘ness’? Goodness me, I can’t think of any.

There are the things I know need doing, and the tasks I’ve set for myself, and the overwhelming temptation not to do any of them… Just to sit in the sunshine, making another scarf, drinking coffee and eating biscuits, ignoring the weeds pushing up through the gravel and these thoughts popping up into my awareness (oh, note to self, that one’s fairly neutral). Kindness, hopefulness, carefulness, busyness – I wonder why business is spelt the way it is? Or should that be: pronounced the way it is? English is wonderful, actually all languages are wonderful, and fascinating. In some ways I wish I’d followed the path from mathematics into linguistics, rather than into statistics, when I chose my first university course. Maybe if my sixth form had been able to accommodate my wishes to do double maths and German at A level, instead of having to compromise on double maths and economics, I would have done it – though I considered applying for a maths and linguistics course anyway – I can’t remember where that was, but it wasn’t Southampton. The road not taken – I would probably still have ended up going into computer programming after graduation, but I would be in a different place, with different people – and that would have made all the difference – I assume.  But how much of what I’ve done in my life has been down to the inherent personality and characteristics that were laid down in those first eighteen years of life? Maybe things wouldn’t be as different now as I think – different places, different people, yes, but thinking about the last fifteen years or so, the different places and different people don’t seem to make that much difference to the inner me.

Ooh, this a bit deep, and it’s starting to give me vertigo. It goes back to my ideas of the Crystal Space, the paths we take and the ways through the mirrored labyrinth, the network of possibilities, probabilities and improbabilities, the book that I’ll probably never write but that haunts every now and again.

Well, I came back from my shopping expedition and now I seem to have written quite a lot after all.

I’ve even got a poem, of sorts, which I cobbled together yesterday from a cluster of little poems or ideas which had popped up at different times, each too long to be haikus, loosely connected but all a bit rough and ready – as my poetry often is.

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Day 20 – Strange Dreams

I dreamt I gave birth to a baby daughter,
and when I awoke, though it was fantastic,
at my age, in my state,
for the briefest of moments, I held on to the joy,
and couldn’t let go.
When I saw the truth, I felt such a loss,
as though for a real child.

I slept again, and dreamt of my mother
(twenty years gone now).
In a clean, white world, she was cold and distant.
When I spoke to her truly, she walked off in silence.
When I found her again,
I pinned her down, and told her I loved her.

When you dream of a child, you dream of yourself.
This much I know.
Is that who I grieve for?
When you dream of a parent, I don’t know the meaning.

I don’t like these dreams,
that carry such meanings I cannot untangle.
Please give me the daylight.

Linda Rushby 20 April 2020
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Dilemma

Because I thought up a poem (of more than four lines) first thing yesterday, I ducked out of writing anything else for the rest of the day. I guess that’s cheating really, but it’s not the first time I’ve done it. Today I’m clueless as regards poetry, but we’ll see how the day develops. I write spontaneously or not at all. If there isn’t that voice in my head telling me what to write, it’s all much too stressful. Of course, when I start writing, I often get into a flow, but usually what flows out is more of the same; hard to spot the gold dust, however fine the sieve.

Last week I sent the link for my blog to my therapist (we’d discussed it the week before and I asked if she’d mind or if it would be professionally inappropriate). It made our weekly Skype session a bit odd, as we started talking about poetry and writing in general and bizarrely I felt a bit awkward. She said she liked my poetry, but the rest not so much, because of the way I write about myself – which I found quite surprising, because I thought I’d been remarkably chipper recently. She commented that she could understand why my friends get exasperated with me over it, but that’s inevitable, isn’t it? When I write I’m writing about the real me, the person I am inside, the person I live with first thing in the morning and last thing at night, the woman I wake up in bed with at four in the morning, not the fantasy Melinda or Cassandra they have in their heads, so of course they’re not going to like this woman with all her self-loathing and insecurities – she’s hardly an attractive person. Isn’t that why I write about it? Because I can explain who I am without being shouted down and told not to say those things, like my brother reducing me to tears in a curry house or the ‘friend’ who rang when I was very depressed and then hung up the phone because she didn’t want to hear me talking about how I felt.

The therapist wants me to stop judging myself but how is that even possible? How can I think honestly about myself and the things I do and the thoughts I have without making implicit judgements – the language doesn’t exist. I can say: ‘I know I’m lazy, disorganised, chaotic, forgetful – most of that is down to dyspraxia, and I accept that that is who I am and I can’t change’ – but I can’t say any of those things are not true. Are there any words to describe those characteristics of my personality that don’t carry some negative charge? There have always been two choices: to become a better person, or to accept who I am and say it doesn’t matter. This is the dilemma which has torn me apart psychologically and emotionally all my life, and still does.

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Passing Time

I was standing in the street in my dressing gown, it was 10.45 and I wondered how come I had slept in so late.

Then I was in bed looking at the clock, and it was 5.17, and I realised I had been dreaming. I was reassured, because that made so much more sense.

Thinking of what to write every day is difficult (except when it isn’t, when it just pops up) but the writing itself is easy.

The days go by so fast, even though I do hardly anything, one day after another, hard to tell the difference. The longer it stays like this, the less I feel inclined to interact with people. Life is so much easier this way. I think it will be a shock when external things start up again. I’ll have to make decisions then, do I make myself go out or do I carry on as I have been doing?

Over the last couple of years, people have said to me: ‘You do such a lot!’ and I’ve thought: no, I don’t, not really. When I listed all the external things I did each day: Monday: swimming, writers, yoga; Tuesday: tai chi; Wednesday: coffee (sometimes) etc etc it might sound like a lot, but it was just me, making myself go out, trying to make myself be sociable because I thought that was what I needed. But I wasn’t DOING anything – I would meet ‘the writers’ in the library, but I would never actually write anything. Now I am staying home and writing, but still I’m not actually writing ‘anything’, just spewing out words. Passing time, revelling in the dullness and emptiness of my life. Sometimes crocheting or weaving, but not to make anything – I’ve unravelled this latest cardigan so many times that by the time it’s finished I’ll probably have made it twice, then it will just go in the wardrobe and I’ll never wear it. The weaving and the weather blanket, both completely pointless (though I’ve promised this year’s weather blanket to my daughter, and I gave last year’s to my son). But the point is in the process of the making – it passes the time and makes me happy. And then there’s killer su doku – can’t even pretend that achieves anything.

The same goes (in spades) for the writing, of course. I’m quite impressed that I’ve kept it going for as long as I have – though in the past I’ve done it for years – why did I give it up? Maybe partly because it takes up a huge amount of time, that’s why the mornings go so fast, and afternoons are always filled up with the radio, so that’s the day gone. It’s interesting, though, to reflect that it’s not these things that make me stressed. I’m calmer and happier now, and that’s because I’m doing these things by myself – these pointless, meaningless things – and I don’t feel like I have to make myself go out and be with people.

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The Guilt-Gremlin

The wind has come back. No breakfast in the garden today. It was always the height of foolishness to think that summer might be on its way before the middle of April. Lovely week to be on the river though. Yes, wouldn’t it, but it didn’t happen – deal with it.

Sometimes over the last few days I’ve been feeling guilty about rushing inside for 3 o’clock, to spend an hour sitting in the front room listening to drama on the radio and crocheting, rather than being out in the gorgeous sunshine. Ah yes, guilt. I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, as well.

In the past, I’ve often been asked if I was raised Catholic – occasionally, Jewish – because of my intense relationship with guilt. A few days ago I blogged about how I’m enjoying the lockdown, and later felt pangs at admitting that I was happy in such awful times when so many people are suffering in so many ways. Yet a few days earlier, I experienced guilt because I was feeling so sorry for myself over my missed holiday and non-event of a birthday, when so many people were having it so much worse than I was- enough with the self-pity, count your blessings, be grateful etc etc.

Guilt gets you like that. I’ve always known it, but don’t think I’ve ever seen it so starkly before. There is literally no way I can ever win that argument: if I’m happy, that’s bad; if I’m miserable, that’s bad too. The only way I could defeat the guilt-gremlin would be by putting myself out there on the front line and martyring myself for the sake of others – though then, you might have to question my motives – and I’d probably get it all wrong and make things worse, so there’s the perfect excuse for sitting on my backside and not doing anything.

I’ve heard Buddhist thinkers say that compassion must start with oneself – that until you can love yourself unconditionally, you aren’t in any position to share the light of compassion with the rest of the world. I can’t see my mother having any truck with that argument. Until everyone else’s actual and emotional needs have been met, there’s no question of looking out for yourself. But how can you ever tell? You need an instinct to know what’s best for everyone else (even before they know themselves), and act on it at all times. That’s what being a good person means – you can’t relax and think about yourself until you’ve checked how every action on your part might affect others. And if you’re generally a dreamy, thinky person, not overly sensitive to reading other people’s minds and moods, social interaction becomes a minefield. Where next to stick your foot where it’s not wanted, and prepare to deal with the consequences when they blow up in your face? (See, appropriate metaphor, not just a cliché).

But I’m being unfair on my mother. Can’t go blaming her for my failings.

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Easter Sunday

I wrote a poem yesterday evening, and announced it on Facebook. But now I don’t know if I want to share it – it’s a bit personal.

Seems a waste, though, if it means I have to write another one today.

I haven’t done my yoga etc half hour yet, because when I got up I thought I had something to say and if I didn’t say it, it would annoy me because I’d forget what it was and have to think of something else. So here I am.

It’s just that I was thinking: have I done this long enough to prove that I can do it? Have I done it long enough to prove that there’s no point? I suppose it kills the time – but then time passes anyway, whether I do anything or not – it has no regard for human intentions. Now I remember that when I was downstairs feeding the cat and getting a cup of water – or rather, after that -I forgot to bring the washing basket up from the kitchen.

When you write a journal, is it/should it be about momentous things which have happened, or just whatever rubbish pops into your head at the time of writing? The latter is easier, and sometimes it throw up some surprises. That’s my excuse, if I need one.

I need excuses for everything I do. I feel pressure to justify my actions, even though, realistically, I know that no one cares or is interested. My life trundles along its predictable daily paths, and if it wasn’t for social media, no one would know – or probably care. That’s significant, that I think my actions and thoughts are of no interest to anyone. I am anonymous and invisible, even more so at the moment. If anything happened to me, I wonder who would be the first to notice, how they would notice, how long it would take, and what would they, or even could they, do about it?

My main concern is what would happen to my poor little cat. Anyone else concerned can look after themselves, but I worry about her, trapped here alone and starving. Perhaps she would finally be brave enough to go out through the cat flap, and once out there, she’d probably be a lot tougher and more resourceful than I give her credit for. They’re like that, aren’t they, cats? Someone would find her and maybe take her to a vet, where they’d scan her and get my details from her chip, and try and contact me. Maybe that’s when they’d realise I wasn’t responding, and call the police, and they’d come round and find me? Or maybe not, in these times, when everyone has more important things to worry about than a stray cat – or a stray woman, come to that. One more or less in the grand scheme of things. Who knows what might happen? And I didn’t write about moths. Maybe I should keep that one for tomorrow now.

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Day 9 – A Strange Road

I stepped onto a strange road
and oh, the excitement of knowing
the not-knowingness of the world.

The future an empty page.
The adventures I planned,
and those that I hadn’t.
The paths that I travelled,
the places I saw,
the people whose paths
crossed with mine.

Then one day I stopped,
and looked around
and saw there was no one
who made me their centre,
their lodestar, their true heart.

I have known
the devotion of children
the whispers of lovers
the kindness of friends,
and I’m grateful for these.

But only one person
can fill my void
and I must learn
to be that one.

Linda Rushby 9 April 2020

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On My Desk

Difficult to write with a cat where the keyboard should be. Fortunately it’s a wireless keyboard.

Does mean I’m sitting very awkwardly. If I sit with my knees under the desk and keyboard on it to one side, I have to twist my lower back to reach it. Not good. If I move my chair so I’m directly in front of the spare bit of desk, my knees are hitting the desk drawers and I have to stretch forward which also puts a strain on my back, and I have to reach over the keyboard when I need to use the mouse, which is awkward. I’ve tried with the keyboard on my knees, but that’s also awkward and I can’t look at the screen at the same time.

In trying to take a photo of this situation, I noticed the mess on my desk. What on earth is the end roller of my old Dyson vacuum cleaner doing here? Box of tissues (fair enough); empty cassette box (who knows what happened to the cassette?); CD box containing – a CD which – yes! – does match the title on the outside of the box (Neil Young’s ‘Harvest’); copy of ‘Tea With Douglas’ which I was using for reference in my last book design job; two empty (used) jiffy bags in different sizes; copy of ‘The Culture of Contentment’ by John Kenneth Galbraith, which I was also using for reference (for the same job, on the order of the front matter for a non-fiction book); a dozen recordable CDs, some with backup data from years ago, some blank, all on a spike; a note book; a Black and Decker Dustbuster on its charging stand (which is here because I’m supposed to use it for picking up dry cat litter off the bathroom floor, and this is the nearest place I can plug it in which isn’t on the floor where it’s liable to get tripped over); a ceramic pot with a large capital ‘B’ on the side and ‘RUSH’ inside the bottom bulge of the B, which is intended to hold toothbrushes, but I bought it because if you think about it could be a pun on my name, and I intended to use it for pens but it contains only a green CD writer pen whose felt tip is fuzzy, dried up and unusuable, an orange gel pen (probably also dried up) and a pencil with a hand carved and decorated end like a cute penguin; stack of four 5 cm diameter semi-clear pastel coloured round plastic boxes containing small stationery items (on closer inspection, two hold buttons, one pins and one miscellaneous including staples, picture hooks, screws, drawing pins, freezer bag ties, a green magnet from a notice board and a small metal plate with East Asian characters which appears to have come off the back of something); three coasters and a coffee cup.

And a cat. Except that she has now woken up, jumped down and walked off in a huff.